FIFA 16 visually looked far better and the player likeness as expected was more realised than ever before

Every year when FIFA comes around we get excited. No, not because of the newly tweaked passing mechanics, or even the new 'emotion' at the heart of the game.

It's about the graphics. It always has been. How real does it look, how convincing is the crowd, how do the players move - can we finally pretend, at last, that we're controlling a 'real' game as if by magic, and not playing with a toy?

It is just weeks since the World Cup has finished but already fans all over the country are looking forward to the new domestic season and with that comes the latest version of EA Sports’ mega selling FIFA series. This time round it is FIFA 16 and whilst FIFA 14 did come out on the PS4 and Xbox One I am hoping that this version will make more use of the extra power available on the latest consoles with the developers having another year to get to grips with the hardware.

FIFA 16 was an improvement on the new consoles, visually it looked far better and the player likeness as expected was more realised than ever before. The game play itself was very similar to what I had experienced on the PS3, the game was hyped as introducing the new ‘Ignite’ game engine that supposedly improves the AI of the players making them more lifelike and being able to react to situations on the pitch, such as chasing a late winner with little time left. The most noticeable aspect of Ignite that I noticed was the new interactive crowd, this was a big improvement over the previous generation consoles.

The graphics are really the icing on the cake to the gameplay, given that FIFA 16 already had the potential to look uncannily realistic at times, and so the alterations to the ball physics and player control and animations will be key. It’s unclear how much of this will transfer back across to the PS3 and Xbox 360, though thankfully they aren’t yet being relegated to legacy status, but the changes here are another step in the right direction, trying to solve the problems in the gameplay at the root cause rather than with superficial tweaks.